Denny Hamlin won five races in 2012, just as many as Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski and just as many as third-place Jimmie Johnson.

But Hamlin finished a distant sixth in the standings, the result of too many mechanical failures and poor fuel mileage.

Considering that a championship team needs to put everything together, it could be debatable whether Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing group are a championship-caliber team.

They know how to win. But the big question is do they know how to finish the deal.

Hamlin had 14 top-five finishes—more than champion Keselowksi’s 13. But Keselowski had 23 top-10s and just one race where he did not finish while Hamlin had just 17 top-10s and four DNFs.

“You can’t win all these races and not be a championship-caliber team,” Hamlin said. “It’s the other things—the teamwork, the luck, and things like that that make you champions. We know what our weak points are—it’s been documented a thousand times.

“It’s going to be what we work on going forward.”

It’s true that there’s no secret what plagued Hamlin in 2012. He ran out of gas at Chicagoland Speedway. His team used the wrong air pressures for qualifying at New Hampshire, which Hamlin overcame to eventually win the race. A master ignition switch disassembled during the race at Martinsville, where Hamlin also could have won.

“It’s easier for us to know that let’s just get reliable than trying to figure out (things if) we’re hanging around 10th every week, we made the Chase and limped in and never were a factor,” Hamlin said.

“We were a factor at every single racetrack. It’s just that bolts didn’t get tightened, things like that. That can be fixed. Sometimes performance can’t.”

Hamlin won early in the season at Phoenix in just his second race with new crew chief Darian Grubb. He won at Kansas. He won back-to-back races at Bristol and Atlanta. In the Chase, he won at New Hampshire, a place where he predicted he would win after dominating the race in July only to be stymied by confusion over whether to take two tires or four on the final stop.

It wasn’t until those back-to-back wins in late August and early September at Bristol and Atlanta that Hamlin felt he and Grubb were on the same page.

“There were many instances that we still weren’t on the same page right until the Chase starts, so for me, having a whole year behind each other going into next year, I think it’s going to mean really good things,” Hamlin said.

He hopes so. He understands that just finishing in the top 10 is important but he also understands that he didn’t reach his goals.

He came so close in 2010 when he saw the title slip away in the final race. Hamlin was never a factor in 2011 but was a title contender in 2012 before the master control switch disaster at Martinsville.

While he had time to get over the frustration, Hamlin admitted he spent the banquet week having a hard time acknowledging all the “good season” talk he heard from fans.

“All they see are the wins and things like that,” Hamlin said. “Nothing satisfies me but a championship. As far as I’m concerned, we’re the losers out here partying with the winners.”